_My last effort to recover my family.--Sad tidings of my wife.--Her
degradation.--I am compelled to regard our relation as dissolved
forever._
In view of the failure to hear any thing of my wife, many of my best
friends advised me to get married again, if I could find a suitable
person. They regarded my former wife as dead to me, and all had been
done that could be.
But I was not yet satisfied myself, to give up. I wanted to know
certainly what had become of her. So in the winter of 1845, I resolved
to go back to Kentucky, my native State, to see if I could hear
anything from my family. And against the advice of all my friends, I
went back to Cincinnati, where I took passage on board of a Southern
steamboat to Madison, in the State of Indiana, which was only ten
miles from where Wm. Gatewood lived, who was my former owner. No
sooner had I landed in Madison, than I learned, on inquiry, and from
good authority, that my wife was living in a state of adultery with
her master, and had been for the last three years. This message she
sent back to Kentucky, to her mother and friends. She also spoke of
the time and manner of our separation by Deacon Whitfield, my being
taken off by the Southern black-legs, to where she knew not; and that
she had finally given me up. The child she said was still with her.
Whitfield had sold her to this man for the above purposes at a high
price, and she was better used than ordinary slaves. This was a death
blow to all my hopes and pleasant plans. While I was in Madison I
hired a white man to go over to Bedford, in Kentucky, where my mother
was then living, and bring her over into a free State to see me. I
hailed her approach with unspeakable joy. She informed me too, on
inquiring whether my family had ever been heard from, that the report
which I had just heard in relation to Malinda was substantially true,
for it was the same message that she had sent to her mother and
friends. And my mother thought it was no use for me to run any more
risks, or to grieve myself any more about her.
From that time I gave her up into the hands of an all-wise
Providence. As she was then living with another man, I could no longer
regard her as my wife. After all the sacrifices, sufferings, and risks
which I had run, striving to rescue her from the grasp of slavery;
every prospect and hope was cut off. She has ever since been regarded
as theoretically and practically dead to me as a wife, for she was
living in a state of adultery, according to the law of God and man.
Poor unfortunate woman, I bring no charge of guilt against her, for I
know not all the circumstances connected with the case. It is
consistent with slavery, however, to suppose that she became
reconciled to it, from the fact of her sending word back to her
friends and relatives that she was much better treated than she had
ever been before, and that she had also given me up. It is also
reasonable to suppose that there might have been some kind of
attachment formed by living together in this way for years; and it is
quite probable that they have other children according to the law of
nature, which would have a tendency to unite them stronger together.
In view of all the facts and circumstances connected with this matter,
I deem further comments and explanations unnecessary on my part.
Finding myself thus isolated in this peculiarly unnatural state, I
resolved, in 1846, to spend my days in traveling, to advance the
anti-slavery cause. I spent the summer in Michigan, but in the
subsequent fall I took a trip to New England, where I spent the
winter. And there I found a kind reception wherever I traveled among
the friends of freedom.
While traveling about in this way among strangers, I was sometimes
sick, with no permanent home, or bosom friend to sympathise or take
that care of me which an affectionate wife would. So I conceived the
idea that it would be better for me to change my position, provided I
should find a suitable person.
In the month of May, 1847, I attended the anti-slavery anniversary in
the city of New York, where I had the good fortune to be introduced to
the favor of a Miss Mary E. Miles, of Boston; a lady whom I had
frequently heard very highly spoken of, for her activity and devotion
to the anti-slavery cause, as well as her talents and learning, and
benevolence in the cause of reforms, generally. I was very much
impressed with the personal appearance of Miss Miles, and was deeply
interested in our first interview, because I found that her principles
and my own were nearly one and the same. I soon found by a few visits,
as well as by letters, that she possessed moral principle, and
frankness of disposition, which is often sought for but seldom found.
These, in connection with other amiable qualities, soon won my entire
confidence and affection. But this secret I kept to myself until I was
fully satisfied that this feeling was reciprocal; that there was
indeed a congeniality of principles and feeling, which time nor
eternity could never change.
When I offered myself for matrimony, we mutually engaged ourselves to
each other, to marry in one year, with this condition, viz: that if
either party should see any reason to change their mind within that
time, the contract should not be considered binding. We kept up a
regular correspondence during the time, and in June, 1848, we had the
happiness to be joined in holy wedlock. Not in slaveholding style,
which is a mere farce, without the sanction of law or gospel; but in
accordance with the laws of God and our country. My beloved wife is a
bosom friend, a help-meet, a loving companion in all the social,
moral, and religious relations of life. She is to me what a poor
slave's wife can never be to her husband while in the condition of a
slave; for she can not be true to her husband contrary to the will of
her master. She can neither be pure nor virtuous, contrary to the will
of her master. She dare not refuse to be reduced to a state of
adultery at the will of her master; from the fact that the
slaveholding law, customs and teachings are all against the poor
slaves.
I presume there are no class of people in the United States who so
highly appreciate the legality of marriage as those persons who have
been held and treated as property. Yes, it is that fugitive who knows
from sad experience, what it is to have his wife tyrannically snatched
from his bosom by a slaveholding professor of religion, and finally
reduced to a state of adultery, that knows how to appreciate the law
that repels such high-handed villany. Such as that to which the writer
has been exposed. But thanks be to God, I am now free from the hand of
the cruel oppressor, no more to be plundered of my dearest rights; the
wife of my bosom, and my poor unoffending offspring. Of Malinda I
will only add a word in conclusion. The relation once subsisting
between us, to which I clung, hoping against hope, for years, after we
were torn assunder, not having been sanctioned by any loyal power,
cannot be cancelled by a legal process. Voluntarily assumed without
law mutually, it was by her relinquished years ago without my
knowledge, as before named; during which time I was making every
effort to secure her restoration. And it was not until after living
alone in the world for more than eight years without a companion known
in law or morals, that I changed my condition.